Curator’s Talk: Strolling Together in the World of Chinese Art

Join three expert art historians in unraveling China Institute Gallery’s anniversary exhibition, China Institute Gallery at 60, 1966–2026: Selections from Three Millennia of Chinese Art. Bringing decades of collective expertise, the speakers will recount the multifaceted stories and messages embedded within these works. They will unpack their ancient history, whether as objects of private scholarly treasures or as public assertions of dynastic power, while also remarking on their modern history in the Gallery’s 123 past exhibitions over the past 60 years.

The presentations will span a wide variety of media, featuring classical paintings and ceramics alongside garden rocks, jades, and other small objects that recreate the complete sensory tapestry of Chinese cultural life.

Through three keynotes and a panel discussion, the cherished tradition of scholarly dialogue will be revived. We invite you to stroll alongside our curators, to observe, admire, and contemplate these works in intimate detail.

Keynote One: “Pursuit of the Afterlife”

Speaker: Dr. Annette Juliano 朱安耐

For the ancient Chinese, the pursuit of the afterlife meant ensuring the deceased’s transition to another realm. This required anticipating their needs and correctly preparing the tomb. An ancient sage summarized the process: the deceased were treated “as though dead and yet still alive, as though gone and yet still present.” Well-cared-for ancestor spirits meant good fortune for living. Neglected spirits turned into implacable ghosts. My discussion will center around the enormous creativity this pursuit inspired in Chinese culture – making objects for the tomb, such as mingqi (clay spirit objects). I will incorporate objects from the exhibition as well as from other sources.

Keynote Two: “The Scholar's World”

Speaker: Dr. David Ake Sensabaugh 江文苇

Over the past six decades, China Institute has held many exhibitions that have introduced the world of the Chinese scholar. I will concentrate on just a few works from exhibitions on gardens, rocks, books, and seals. These were all subjects of groundbreaking exhibitions, and we are fortunate to have been able to reassemble several works from those exhibitions. I will discuss paintings from the Ming dynasty depicting gardens and rocks; rocks from the Qing dynasty; rare books published in the late Ming dynasty; and hardstone seals and books of seal impressions from the early Qing dynasty. All of them open up aspects of life in traditional China.

Keynote Three: “What Makes a Great Chinese Painting?”

Speaker: Dr. Alfreda Murck 姜斐德

China Institute Gallery at 60 has fifteen excellent paintings on display. They range in date from the Southern Song (12th–13th century) to a few months ago. They range in size from small fans to a hanging scroll two and a half meters tall. Selected to represent ten exceptional exhibitions, many of these paintings exhibit the factors that make for a great work of art. I will talk about five factors that make a painting compelling. Most of my examples come from paintings in the exhibition; a few are from other sources. Full disclosure – these are subjective judgments but based on years of studying and admiring Chinese paintings.

About the Curators

Dr. Annette Juliano is a Research Associate at the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World at New York University and serves as co-editor of the Inner Central Asian Art and Archaeology Series, published by Brepols. In 2016, she retired from Rutgers University, where she had been Professor of Art History, Chair of the Department, and Associate Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Her extensive publications focused on the “Six Dynasties” period, the 400 years of disruption between China’s two great empires, the Han (206 BCE-220 CE) and Tang (618-906). Her first exhibition for China Institute Gallery in 1975 focused on the Art of the Six Dynasties: Centuries of Change and Innovation, followed by her monograph Deng Xian: An important Sixth Century Tomb, 1980. She also co-authored the major catalogue Monks and Merchant: Silk Road Treasures from Northwest China, 2001. A forthcoming research volume on Inner Mongolia, Before and Beyond Pingcheng 4th-6th centuries, will be available in late 2026. She received her Ph.D. from the Institute of Fine Arts, NYU.

Dr. Alfreda Murck is a visiting professor at Columbia University’s Department of Art History and Archaeology and is a research volunteer in the Department of Asian Art at the Metropolitan Museum. She lived in Taiwan and Beijing from 1991 to 2013. In Beijing, she worked at the Palace Museum and taught in the History Department at Peking University and at the Central Academy of Fine Arts. Her publications include Poetry and Painting in Song China: The Subtle Art of Dissent (Harvard Asia Center 2000); Mao’s Golden Mangoes and the Cultural Revolution (Museum Rietberg, Zurich 2013). A book manuscript on Qiao Zhongchang’s handscroll illustrating Su Shi’s “Second Prose-poem on the Red Cliff” will be published by the University of California Press in 2027. She earned her PhD from Princeton University.

A specialist in the history of Chinese art and archaeology, Dr. David Sensabaugh holds a BA in History from Stanford University and an MA and PhD in Chinese and Japanese Art and Archaeology from Princeton University. His teaching career included positions at the University of Virginia, Oberlin College, Colby College, and Columbia University. In 1997, he moved from his career as a full-time teacher to join the Yale University Art Gallery as curator of Asian Art and head of the Department of Asian Art. While at Yale, he continued to teach in the Department of History of Art. He has been a co-curator and an author for several catalogues at China Institute, including the Last Emperor’s Collection (2008) and Flowers on a River (2023), and he was an author and content editor of The Making of Masterpieces: Treasures of Painting and Calligraphy from the Forbidden City (Hong Kong Palace Museum, 2022). A recent article on eighteenth-century Chinese paintings at the Yale University Art Gallery appeared in Arts of Asia in 2018. He is currently continuing an ongoing research project on late Yuan-early Ming scholarly culture in Jiangnan.